The Oxford Companion to American Theatre

First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating facts" (Newsday). Now thoroughly revised, this distinguished volume once again provides an up-to-date guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present. Completely updated by theater professor Thomas Hischak, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, and much more. The book covers not only classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) but also many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced our dramatic development (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance. Accessible and authoritative, this valuable A-Z reference is ideal not only for students and scholars of theater, but everyone with a passion for the stage.

Fully updated and expanded, this encyclopedic volume is packed with information about the American theatre from its beginnings to the present day. In addition to comprehensive coverage of America's leading actors, playwrights, directors, songwriters, playhouses, and dramatic movements, there are entries on the people and productions from overseas that have helped shape the US stage tradition, most notably Shakespeare, Beckett, and Pinter. There are also summaries of hundreds of celebrated plays as diverse as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cats, The Iceman Cometh, Arsenic and Old Lace, My Fair Lady, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Ranging from Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman to George Gershwin and Neil Simon, from Florenz Ziegfeld and Mae West to Lee Strasberg and Jessica Tandy, this is the standard one-volume reference for everyone who loves the American stage.